Good weekend for my death knight! Friday night was our usual alt raid, for which he’s one of the two tanks. He finally completed all his quests last week so he could start picking up Shadowfrost Shards, and Friday he got his first four! Only 46 more to go. Yeah, it’s going to be awhile. But I was pleasantly surprised to find out that only those who are at that stage of the quest can even loot the shards–which means it’s me only for the foreseeable future since the other two people in the group who have Shadow’s Edge still need to complete the three Infusion quests. I suspect that once I get a few more shards, the raid leader will just decree that I get to finish my Shadowmourne before we move on to the next person. I hope so!
In other news–I had some kind of tanking epiphany on my DK, and now suddenly I can tank heroics without stress! I’m not sure what happened–I did make one small tweak to my spec a couple of weeks ago at the suggestion of a guildie, which did very nice things to my threat generation, so that might be part of it. But suddenly I’m holding aggro and keeping it, even on large groups of mobs and against overgeared DPS aggro-hogs like my mage friend (who considers it his mission in life to try to pull aggro off me!) I’m still not sure I’m brave enough to try H-HoR (maybe with an all-guild group) but it’s nice to know I can tank heroics since that does make getting through the queue a lot faster and easier.
Yes, DK tanks can fall very fast. We don’t block (except with our face) so large groups will hurt a lot more than on a Pally or Warrior (who at high enough gear levels can just stand there blocking everything).
The key, and when I finally felt like a half-way decent tank, is using the many many cooldowns pro-actively. You can basically have one of Anti-Magic Shell, Vamp Blood (for example), and Icebound Fortitude up at all times. Certainly no reason not to use them for large pulls, but it seems many new DKs don’t even know those buttons exist.
Or the Blood tanks that use Hysteria on themselves! I got a few compliments just this week for actually using it on a Rogue and Feral Druid - sounded like they’ve never gotten it from a Blood DK tank before.
Been focusing on the tank a bit more, since the Hunter is still stuck at LK on 25s and his 10-man group runs Sat/Sun afternoons (too much else to do in the summer). Tanked 10/12 ICC10 and 6/12 ICC25 this week. Multiple 1% wipes on PP25 (with multiple DPS doing 3-4k…) made me sad. As does the fact that the Abom job is rather boring, IMO.
It’s really not a bad idea for all casters with no minimum range. While tanking I’d much rather have a mob that got pulled off me standing right next to me than running 30 yards away.
As long as they don’t use their knockback… which it seems folks love doing in random heroics.
No, they’re not inside. They’re just along the approachway to the ToC raid instance. They’re lining the wooden platform on both sides. You have to go up the stairs to get to them.
You know the four wings of the building that all lead into the central circle? They’re on the east one of those. Not inside the circle, but on the straight part under the awning.
Leather comes from… Leather and Links, I think it’s called? Near the fountain. Just ask a Dalaran Citizen where the armor vendors are, and pick your appropriate armor type for directions.
Boomkins tend to crit like nobody’s business, and on mine I tend to get a whole lot of aggro when AOEing especially, so I try to stand next to the tank to make it easier to pick the MOB back up.
I guess that makes a certain amount of sense. It’s just … they’re so wide, they sometimes make it hard for me to see what I’m doing. Especially after the fight when I’m trying to loot a corpse and keep right-clicking on the boomkin’s hit box
Ah, that explains it. I’ve never gone up those stairs.
Well that was annoying. Queued up to slay Ahune, and got one-shotted by something I didn’t even see almost as soon as the fight started. The run back was so frakkin’ long that I made it back just in time to watch him fall over dead, pretty much missing the entire fight.
So I was in Sethekk Halls for the first time and we were going against Talon King Ikiss. The people who had done the instance before told the rest of us that once the message saying he’s focusing his arcane energies comes up, to run behind a pillar. They never said anything about waiting for him to blink first or anything, so the first time I saw the message come on, I haul ass behind a pillar and get hit. Tank automatically says ‘wtg huntard’.
OMG, I was just filled with rage after that. Letting me channel my unresolved issues with Phys Ed in school, let me explain. You know how the teacher will have you start, say, volleyball drills? And all the jocks already know the drills because they are on the team? But this is the first time you’ve seen this drill and the teacher gets one of the team members to demonstrate once, but because they know it by heart, they do it so fast you’re like ‘WTF did you just do?’? It felt like that. Sorry for being a huntard on my first try. Then after the battle when I asked why I was being a huntard, they just said ‘we gave you instructions before the battle!’.
I like to pay it forward. When a group made mostly of one guild says their tank is learning, I’ll stick around and die a few times so that you don’t have to go through the queue a bajillion times. I’ll be patient. When I figured out that Shirrak drops a bomb where the person he was targeting was AT THE TIME of the message and people still stood there, I was patient. Well, for the first 4 or so wipes after telling people that, anyway.
I forgot this started! Is there a level requirement for Ahune? I wondering if I should take my 73 pally around to get all the achievements, since my priest already has them.
Is the Ahune loot any good? I got the non-combat pet last year; I’m not sure he drops anything else I’d be interested in.
He dropped a caster cloak that I just selected DE on. I already have a 264 cloak, though it’s for my ret spec. If he drops a tank cloak for me I might go for it. I think you need to be level 80. I tried to solo it at level 80 last year, because they forgot to change the quest info and it still said it was a level 70 quest, even though they’d bumped him to 80 (I think).
Located and checked out those Triumph vendors at the Tournament. I didn’t realize I could “upgrade” my T9 stuff. I take it I need to do the raid to get Trophies of the Crusade?
Technically, they also drop in 10-heroic mode (TOGC10, it is sometimes called) if you defeat the final boss with >40 attempts remaining. But good luck PuGging that
Hmmm… just dug out my main’s Fire Festival clothes from last year, and I must say, the color scheme particularly suits her complexion and hair color (she’s a pale, blue-eyed redhead).
Now to go attempt this torch-juggling thing. I just need that achievement, and the steal-the-fire-from-the-Horde-capitals achievement.
Also, they’ve got these female dwarf Earthen Ring Pathfinders in rather fetching costumes
Good luck, they’ve done something with it this year, last year it was easy but this year, oh boy. It’s still doable but it’s insanely difficult, the button mashing required is like nothing ever seen before in the history of videogaming!
Only a slight exaggeration, but 40 torches in 15 seconds means almost 3 torch-tosses per second and it requires one key press and one mouse click per toss. :dubious:
Thanks, martu. That’s the best flight path map I have seen yet. According to that map, though, I don’t need to land at area 52 anyway, right, because it’s a Horde node? I am missing Telredor and I’ll get it tonight.
That map is a bit inaccurate, the FP in Area 52 is neutral, both Alliance and Horde use it. It’s also missing the ally FP in Evergrove, Orebor Harborage and Sanctum of Stars(but depending on you Scryer rep, the last one may not be available).
Anyway, if it’s just about your skinning there’s no need to go to Netherstorm at all, at 350 skill you can skin any level 60-70 or so beast and still get skill ups, heck my rogue got to 380 without even setting foot in Outland.
Yeah, it’s going to be awhile. But I was pleasantly surprised to find out that only those who are at that stage of the quest can even loot the shards–which means it’s me only for the foreseeable future since the other two people in the group who have Shadow’s Edge still need to complete the three Infusion quests. I suspect that once I get a few more shards, the raid leader will just decree that I get to finish my Shadowmourne before we move on to the next person. I hope so!
